May
by Ed Kilgore
The Political Animal
The Washington Monthly
On the surface, the burst of unwelcome attention attracted by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) today is just another tale of a right-wing pol feeding red meat to a “base” audience and getting burned when one of them got all lathered up and posted it online.
In case you missed it, Coffman offered this unprompted observation to his friends at a May 12 fundraiser:
“I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that,” Coffman said. “But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”
The predictable furor focused on the first part of his statement, suggesting as it did a ham-handed appeal to “birtherist” sentiment. But in his “clarification” of his views, apologizing for the birtherism, Coffman actually doubled down on the second part in a way that really should spur some discussion:
“I don’t believe the president shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals,” the statement read. “As a Marine, I believe America is unique and based on a core set of principles that make it superior to other nations.”
By James Kwak
The Baseline Scenario <—Home Page Link
Jonathan Macey, a former professor of mine at Yale Law School, recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (paywall; excerpts here) arguing that we shouldn’t worry about JPMorgan’s recent trading loss because market forces will ensure that the bank does a better job next time. Here’s a key paragraph:
“Thus, far from serving as a pretext to justify still more regulation of providers of capital, J.P. Morgan’s losses should be treated as further proof that markets work. J.P. Morgan and its competitors will learn from this experience and do a better job of hedging the next time. They will learn because they have to: In the long run their survival depends on it. And in the short run their jobs and bonuses depend on it.”
Macey’s central point is that companies don’t like losing money, so losing $2 billion means that they will do a better job of figuring out how not to lose money in the future. That’s obvious. But it’s also beside the point. (READ MORE)
by ANDREW LEVINE
CounterPunch <—Home Page Link
Team Obama is on to something. Worried that fear of a greater evil may not be enough to assure the President’s reelection, they concluded, not without reason, that it was time to throw the base a crumb. And so it is that Obama voiced a few kind words, only words, about gay marriage. As predicted, disheartened liberal voters are fired up again.
Obama has yet to give leaders of organized labor even this much. After remaining aloof from last year’s monumental efforts to resist Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s war on public service unions, he has not yet deigned to campaign for Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, the Democratic challenger to Walker in next month’s recall election.
Worse still, the Democratic National Committee is loathe even to throw spare change Barrett’s way. As everyone should know by now, siding with people in struggle is out of bounds for these champions of change and hope. But one would think that supporting a middle-of-the-road Democrat running against an especially noxious Republican intent on doing the labor movement in would not be asking too much. Evidently it is, however, when the corporate paymasters demur. (READ MORE)
By Dylan Stableford
YAHOO! News
The attorney for Trayvon Martin’s parents is calling for the release of all of the documents related to the death of their son, rather than what he says are strategic leaks of records intended to benefit the defense of George Zimmerman, who is charged with killing Martin.
Attorney Benjamin Crump said on Wednesday he wants “full transparency” in the case, after several news outlets–including ABC, NBC and CNN–were given access to a sealed medical examiner’s report on Martin.
“It was leaked for a beneficial purpose, certainly to help George Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense,” Crump said. “This report needs to be vetted with a keen eye.” (READ MORE)
By Wendy Geller
Stop The Presses
Donna Summer, whom millions of fans revered as “the Queen of Disco,” has died at the age of 63 in Florida after a battle with cancer, the Associated Press confirmed with the singer’s family Thursday morning.
The news comes as a surprise to those who were not aware that she was ill. The legendary superstar was publicly active as recently as last June, when she appeared as a guest panelist on Bravo’s music reality show Platinum Hit.
However, a report by TMZ, which initially broke the story, notes that those close to the singer–known for mega-hits including “Last Dance” and “Bad Girls”–revealed she had been trying to hide how sick she was. A source said that Summer did not seem to be in that bad of shape two weeks ago.
She is survived by her adult daughters Mimi (by her first husband, actor Helmuth Sommer), Brooklyn and Amanda (by second husband Bruce Sudano).
In addition to her status as a pioneer in the dance music genre, Summer was a five-time Grammy Award winner, the first artist ever to score three back-to-back No. 1 double albums, and was nominated–but not chosen–for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. She is credited with influencing stars ranging from Madonna and Michael Jackson, to Beyonce and Rihanna. Her last album, Crayons, was released in 2008.
By Heather
Crooks and Liars
Missouri Republicans decided to shame and embarrass our state yesterday with the induction of Rush Limbaugh into the Hall of Famous Missourians: Doors Locked, Dems Banned As Missouri Honors Limbaugh:
Rush Limbaugh was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians yesterday, but the whole affair seemed strangely cloaked in secrecy.
The AM talker was ushered into an invite-only ceremony that took place behind closed doors inside the State Capitol’s House chambers, “which were locked and guarded by armed members of the Missouri Highway Patrol while the ceremony took place,” according to the Kansas City Star. Democratic lawmakers were banned from the induction.
May
By Jon Stephenson
McClatchy Newspapers
It was early in the morning, perhaps 2 a.m., when gunfire awoke 14-year-old Rafiullah.
He looked outside the house he’d been sleeping in with his grandmother, an aunt, two cousins and his sister, and he saw a man with a weapon walk to a shed that housed the family cow and open fire, shooting the animal dead.
“I told the women inside our room: ‘Let’s run! Let’s get out of here,’ ” recalled Rafiullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name.In the next compound, a short distance from the house where Rafiullah had been sleeping, Haji Mohammad Naim awoke to the sound of dogs barking wildly in the street.
“Then there was shooting, and the dogs stopped barking,” said Naim, who’s in his 50s.Shortly afterward, there was pandemonium at Naim’s front door as Rafiullah and a handful of terrified women and children poured into his yard, seeking shelter. Minutes later, another woman and a young girl emerged from the darkness. (READ MORE)
By David Ferguson
The Raw Story
Several weeks ago, a cartoon strip by New York magazine cartoonist Brian McFadden offered helpful tips for former Massachusetts governor and presumptive Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney (R) on how to be a more successful candidate. It offered such sage advice as “Snap a rubber band around your wrist whenever you feel the urge to say something that would be funny only at the country club” and “snag some youthful voters by taking your rendition of “America the Beautiful” on to “The Voice.” (READ MORE)
by Stephanie Condon
CBS News
House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday seemingly drew a new line in the sand over the nation’s debt and the federal budget, but the White House on Wednesday said Republicans must accept a “balanced approach” to the budget that includes tax increases and spending cuts.
“We’re not going to recreate the debt ceiling debacle of last August,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters today. He added that it’s “not acceptable to hold the American and global economy hostage to one party’s ideology.”
President Obama today met over lunch with Boehner, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. In the meeting, Boehner brought up the issue of debt — Congress by the end of the year will have to once again raise the debt ceiling (the nation’s borrowing limit). Yesterday, Boehner said that when the time comes, “I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase.” (READ MORE)
By Michael Winter
USA TODAY
Mary Richardson Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been found dead at home north of New York City, according to news reports. She was 52.
A source told The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., that she took her life by hanging.
While not confirming Kennedy’s identify, Bedford police said the body was found about 1:36 p.m. ET at an outbuilding on the property, The Journal News says. The Westchester County Medical Examiner’s Office said an autopsy will be performed Thursday.
By Kristen Gwynne
Alternet.org
(MS. ROSENBLUM)
Tuesday night, former judge and pro-medical-marijuana candidate Ellen Rosenblum defeated dispensary-busting, former Interim U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton in the Democratic primary for Oregon’s Attorney General. The state’s medical marijuana laws were a central issue in the race, and many predict that Rosenblum’s victory will have a national impact on U.S. prosecutors with the power to attack, or leave alone, medical pot programs.
Rosenblum said she would make enforcing federal medical marijuana laws a “low priority,” and would instead “protect the rights of medical marijuana patients.” Holton, however, oversaw raids on Oregon marijuana farms while an interim U.S. Attorney in 2010-2011, and has called Oregon’s medical marijuana program a “train wreck.” Because Rosenblum does not yet have a Republican contender, she will likely be Oregon’s next Attorney General. (READ MORE)
By: Rmuse
PoliticusUSA
("DERP!")
Candidates for the presidency, or any political office, seek two important assets when they begin their campaigns, and both are necessary for success when Election Day finally arrives. Of course, money is a crucial element and it goes without saying that less funding means less exposure and fewer votes, but an endorsement by a successful and beloved past president may ameliorate a cash-strapped candidate’s chances if they adhere to the ex-president’s policies. Willard Romney is certainly not struggling to find corporate money for his campaign, but he may find it difficult to separate himself from convicted war criminal George W. Bush, who endorsed Romney yesterday.
Bush, who was recently convicted of war crimes, had just delivered a hypocritical speech on human rights in Washington D.C., and told ABC News that “I’m for Mitt Romney” as he boarded an elevator. Now, Bush’s hypocrisy and status as a war criminal aside, it is not remarkable that Bush endorsed Willard because Romney has stated unconditionally that he will repeat Bush’s policies with a level of enthusiasm and passion that would make the former president proud. It is no secret that Romney intends on starting a substantial war with Iran if he wins the presidency, or that he will increase defense spending when the nation is struggling under the crippling deficit Bush left President Obama to clean up. However, it is Romney’s Bush-inspired fiscal policies that are the most dangerous for America’s economy and future, and voters should quake at the thought of a richer, greedier, and more contemptible George W. Bush in the White House. (READ MORE)
by Barbie Latza Nadeau
The Daily Beast
The smell of death wafted through the 7th-century courtyard of Vatican-owned Sant’Apollinare church in central Rome on Monday as bricklayers pried open the tomb of notorious mobster Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis. Police scientists and criminal investigators at the scene quickly identified De Pedis first by sight and then by taking a fingerprint from his remarkably well-preserved hand. His dark blue suit and black tie were as pristine as the day he was buried.
But when investigators opened the mobster’s tomb on Monday, it was not to look for answers as to why such a man was interred in a church owned by the Vatican. Instead they were searching for the remains of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, who has been missing for three decades and who has been rumored to have been buried in DePedis’s tomb. Orlandi’s father, Ercole, was a Vatican employee who is believed to have stumbled upon damning information linking the Vatican to De Pedis’s gang. Emanuela may have been nabbed as collateral, or simply to keep the elder Orlandi quiet. The girl’s body was never found, and the mystery surrounding her death is one of Italy’s most mysterious unsolved crimes. Frequent purported spottings of her as an adult still make headlines. But despite the intense interest, no credible theory explaining what happened to her has ever been proven. (READ MORE)
The Innocence Project
Columbia University law school published a book-length law review article Tuesday presenting the possible wrongful execution of Texas inmate Carlos DeLuna. The DeLuna case is one of several Texas executions that have been under scrutiny, including that of Cameron Todd Willingham. According to the Columbia Human Rights Law Review article, “Los Tocayos Carlos,” Carlos Hernandez, a DeLuna acquaintance with a history of committing similar crimes was the real perpetrator.
DeLuna was sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a store clerk in Corpus Christi based on a suggestive eyewitness identification procedure in which DeLuna sat handcuffed in the back of a police car. The key eyewitness initially described a suspect that did not match DeLuna’s appearance then changed his mind, reported the Houston Chronicle. The same eyewitness said if DeLuna had not been detained near the crime scene he would have only been 50% sure it was him. (READ MORE)
by Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive
So Jamie Dimon has pushed Ina Drew, his chief investment officer, to walk the plank.
Dimon called her bad bet that cost the bank more than $2 billion “stupid.”
But he himself, just a month ago, called the problem “a tempest in a teapot.”
So why doesn’t he hold himself accountable, and push himself down the plank?
And why doesn’t his board demand his resignation? (READ MORE)
Check out The Progressive’s website HERE.
by Joe Wosik
Progressive News Daily
Mitt Romney’s experience is quite a good explanation as to why abortion should be LEGAL.
David Pakman has a great show on FreeSpeechTV.
Here is the Salon story David is pulling from:
http://www.salon.com/2011/08/08/mitt_romney_abortion_ann_keenan/
AFP
A US Army Apache helicopter accidentally dropped an inactive missile over central Texas, forcing dozens of homes to be evacuated, officials said Wednesday.
No one was injured in the incident in which residents in Killeen told police they saw an object falling from an AH-64 attack helicopter into a field late Tuesday, according to a statement from the army’s Fort Hood base near Killeen.
“Killeen Police Department responded and located the object which was impaled into the surface of the ground. Officials immediately cordoned off the area,” the statement said.
No one was injured in the accident but local media said about 100 homes were evacuated. (READ MORE)
By BEN FORER
("YOUR SHOES ARE HOT!")
Skechers advertised that its toning shoes would help people lose weight, build muscle and get in shape, claims that will now cost the company $40 million in a settlement with U.S. regulators.
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that the company has agreed to the settlement on charges that it “deceived consumers by making unfounded claims” about its Shape-ups, Resistance Runner, Toners and Tone-ups lines of shoes. Consumers who bought the shoes are entitled to refunds.
“Skechers’ unfounded claims went beyond stronger and more toned muscles. The company even made claims about weight loss and cardiovascular health,” David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “The FTC’s message, for Skechers and other national advertisers, is to shape up your substantiation or tone down your claims.” (READ MORE)
RELATED:
Did you buy Skechers toning shoes? Click here to apply for a refund.
By William Browning
Yahoo! Contributor Network
The Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune reports Mica Craig continues to recover from rattlesnake bite he received at a Wal-Mart store in eastern Washington state. Craig initially thought the object was a stick outside of the lawn and garden department. Then the “stick” bit him on the hand. KATU reports Craig was treated with six bags of anti-venom at a hospital in Lewiston, Idaho. The bite happened in Clarkson, Wash.
Snake bites in stores are rare, but for some reason there are several cases of Wal-Mart customers being bitten by the slithery reptiles.
Craig’s Story
In the middle of Craig’s pain, he stomped the snake to death. The 47-year-old is currently recovering. He feels well enough to do television interviews. The Standard-Examiner of Utah reports the man was at Wal-Mart May 11 when he reached down for what ended up being a 20-inch long brown rattlesnake. Craig said he was at the store looking for mulch to grow medical marijuana. (READ MORE)
by Miles Mesa
Progressive News Daily
What are the most important topics people find interesting today?
Occasionally we post “what’s trending” to see what interests people the most. Here’s what’s HOT according to YAHOO! at 6:45PM Pacific Time, May 16, 2012:
01 Mary Kennedy dead
02 Elisabetta Canalis
03 Michael Vick wedding
04 J.Lo leaving Idol?
05 Larry Bird06 Eva Longoria
07 John Travolta
08 New iPhone
09 Alzheimer’s disease
10 Legion of Christ
By Lateef Mungin
CNN
A medical report by George Zimmerman’s family doctor shows the neighborhood watch volunteer was diagnosed with a fractured nose, two black eyes and two lacerations on the back of the head after his fatal confrontation with Trayvon Martin.
The medical exam, which was taken a day after Zimmerman’s February 26 altercation with the unarmed 17-year-old, says Zimmerman suffered a “closed fracture” of his nose, according to two sources who have detailed knowledge of the investigation.
Zimmerman, 28, is accused of killing Martin on February 26 as the African-American teenager walked back to the Sanford, Florida, house where he was staying, after visiting a convenience store. Prosecutors have said Zimmerman, who is a white Hispanic, killed Martin unjustly after profiling him.
Zimmerman, who acknowledges shooting Martin but claims self-defense, has entered a not guilty plea in the case, which has not yet been scheduled for trial. (READ MORE + VIDEO REPORTS)
By Richard Simon
The Los Angeles Times
The defense in ex-Sen. John Edwards’ campaign finance trial rested its case Wednesday without the former presidential candidate or his former mistress taking the stand.
Edwards’ attorneys ended their defense after just three days — in contrast to the nearly three weeks that federal prosecutors spent, often through salacious testimony, attempting to show Edwards accepted more than $900,000 in illegal campaign contributions during his 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to hide his extra-marital affair.
Edwards’ lawyers are trying to convince a jury in a Greensboro, N.C. federal court that the payments from two wealthy benefactors were not political donations but gifts from friends to hide the affair and the child he fathered with mistress Rielle Hunter from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer.
The judge told jurors that no more witnesses would be called, according to the Associated Press, which also said that closing arguments are likely to begin Thursday. (READ MORE)
By Russell Berman and Alicia M. Cohn
The Hill
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) clashed during a White House meeting on Wednesday, with the Speaker telling the president that he was “not going to allow a debt-ceiling increase without doing something serious about the debt,” Boehner’s office said.
The president convened the meeting of the bipartisan congressional leadership to discuss his “to-do list” for Congress, but an aide to the Speaker said the bulk of the meeting was spent on other issues, including a pile-up of expiring tax provisions and the next increase in the federal debt limit.
According to a readout of the meeting from the Speaker’s office, Boehner asked Obama if he was proposing that Congress increase the debt limit without corresponding spending cuts. The president replied, “Yes,” the Boehner aide said. At that point, Boehner told Obama, “As long as I’m around here, I’m not going to allow a debt-ceiling increase without doing something serious about the debt.” (READ MORE)
May
by Henry Blodget
The Business Insider
h/t Geoff
On the eve of the Facebook IPO, the country’s third-biggest advertiser, GM, announced that it was pulling its entire $10 million ad campaign from Facebook because the ads don’t work.
This was obviously bad news for a company that many people still think will one day be bigger than Google.
GM’s competitor, Ford, quickly suggested that GM was the problem, not Facebook, by saying that its own Facebook ads work perfectly well.
But other huge companies also appear to be having serious doubts about the value of the Facebook platform.
Forrester analyst Nate Elliott has this to say:
One global consumer goods company told us recently that Facebook was getting worse, rather than better, at helping marketers succeed. And companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget – a shocking fact given the site’s dominance among users.
By MICHAEL BIESECKER
AP
Records introduced Tuesday at John Edwards’ corruption trial show his campaign finance chairman paid the candidate’s mistress a $9,000 monthly cash allowance, on top of other living and travel expenses.
Wealthy Texas lawyer Fred Baron is one of two political supporters who combined gave about $1 million to help hide Edwards’ pregnant mistress Rielle Hunter as the politician sought the White House in 2008. Evidence introduced at the trial showed Baron was making regular deposits into Hunter’s checking account, the sum totaling $74,000.
The deposits began in June 2008 — several months after Edwards ended his White House run — and continued until December 2008, two months after Baron died. Edwards’ defense has argued any money spent after his bid cannot be a campaign contribution. Prosecutors claim Edwards was still seeking a vice presidential nomination or a spot as attorney general. (READ MORE)
By Laura Zuckerman
Reuters
When Mica Craig reached down to brush what he thought was a stick off some mulch in the garden section of a Washington state Walmart, it turned around and sank its fangs into his hand.
The Friday encounter with a rattlesnake sent Craig, 47, to the hospital, where he said he remained in excruciating pain and may lose feeling in two fingers. Wal-Mart Stores Inc has apologized.
“I reached down to grab the stick to move it out of the way, and the snake stretched out, turned around and got its fangs in my right hand,” he said. “I slung it off and I did a tap dance on it until it was dead.”
Craig was rushed to the hospital by fellow customer Maria Geffre, who told Reuters she saw him crumple to the ground after crying out that he had been bitten by a snake. (READ MORE)
From The Real News Network <—Home Page Link
May
by Paul Krugman
The International Herald-Tribune
One of the characters in the classic 1939 film “Stagecoach” is a banker named Gatewood who lectures his captive audience on the evils of big government, especially bank regulation — “As if we bankers don’t know how to run our own banks!” he exclaims. As the film progresses, we learn that Gatewood is in fact skipping town with a satchel full of embezzled cash.
As far as we know, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, isn’t planning anything similar. He has, however, been fond of giving Gatewood-like speeches about how he and his colleagues know what they’re doing, and don’t need the government looking over their shoulders. So there’s a large heap of poetic justice — and a major policy lesson — in JPMorgan’s shock announcement that it somehow managed to lose $2 billion in a failed bit of financial wheeling-dealing.
Just to be clear, businessmen are human — although the lords of finance have a tendency to forget that — and they make money-losing mistakes all the time. That in itself is no reason for the government to get involved. But banks are special, because the risks they take are borne, in large part, by taxpayers and the economy as a whole. And what JPMorgan has just demonstrated is that even supposedly smart bankers must be sharply limited in the kinds of risk they’re allowed to take on. (READ MORE)
from George Reid
This is actually a vegetable growing in Brazil
called “Chuchu” pronounced “shoo-shoo”.
Dr. Mark Sircus
The Silverbear Cafe
h/t George Reid
(FUKUSHIMA REACTOR BUILDING #4)
After writing my essay “Radioactive Hell on Earth”—actually I wanted to change that title to “Fukushima on Steroids”—I see Christina Consolo’s essay “Fukushima is Falling Apart”:
Are you ready—it is becoming clear that we, our children and our entire civilization is hanging by a thread. It is a very sorry thing to report that we have literally shot ourselves in the foot with a big nuclear shotgun full of radioactive particles of the worst conceivable kind.
It has taken a year but finally “a U.S. Senator finally got off his ass and went to Japan to see what is going on over there. What he saw was horrific. Reactor No. 4 building is on the verge of collapsing.
Seismicity standards rate the building at a zero, meaning even a small earthquake could send it into a heap of rubble. And sitting at the top of the building, in a pool that is cracked, leaking, and precarious even without an earthquake, are 1,565 fuel rods.”
If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event. (READ MORE)
By David Weidner
MarketWatch
Jamie Dimon is right. Regulation is making things worse on Wall Street.
The Dodd-Frank Act has cost banks hundreds of millions in profits and has done nothing to prevent:
— J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s big trading loss.
— MF Global’s implosion and $1.6 billion in lost customer funds.
— Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’ s GS -2.31% scandal-a-quarter pace.
Let’s stop the foolishness and let Wall Street be. Let the free markets be free. Let J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM -3.17% lose $2 billion on what Dimon called a “stupid” trade. Let it make $2 billion on a good trade.
This, after all, is exactly what Wall Street wants. It wants a supercharged high-risk/high-reward market system where banks can blow billions in a morning trade and make it back in the afternoon. (READ MORE)
By Julie Pace
The Christian Science Monitor
On Monday, President Barack Obama defended his view that gay couples should have the right to marry, saying that the country has never gone wrong when it “expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody.”
“That doesn’t weaken families. That strengthens families,” he told gay and lesbian supporters and others at a fundraiser hosted by singer Ricky Martin and the LGBT Leadership Council. “It’s the right thing to do.” (READ MORE)
By Ryan J. Reilly
TPM Muckraker
A former FBI explosives expert who investigated high-profile bombings for the bureau over several decades has been arrested and charged with distributing child pornography over unsecured wireless networks using the screen name “pedodave69.”
Donald J. Sachtleben, 54, joined the FBI in 1983 and retired in 2008. Until the Indiana resident’s arrest he was working as an FBI contractor and a visiting assistant professor of forensic sciences at Oklahoma State University.
During his FBI career, Sachtleben served as team leader at the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and the USS Cole in Yemen, and investigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. He also coordinated the search of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s cabin in Lincoln, Mont., even writing Kaczynski’s arrest affidavit, calling removing a live bomb from Kaczynski’s shack “the toughest experience I had.” (READ MORE)
By Adam Peck
Think Progress.org
The New York Post yesterday published the first excerpts from an upcoming biography on President Obama by Edward Klein, “The Amateur.”
In the Post’s excerpt, Klein alleges that former President Clinton called President Obama an “amateur” and desperately tried to convince Hillary to resign as Secretary of State and challenge Obama in the Democratic primaries this year. (The Clintons swiftly and forcefully denied the claims.) The article was prominently featured on the Drudge Report.
Although you wouldn’t know it from reading the New York Post, the Drudge Report or other popular right-wing outlets, Klein is a discredited author with a history of presenting falsehoods as fact. Here’s what you need to know about Edward Klein:
1. Klein’s last book, which was self-published, suggests Obama was born on foreign soil and is a practicing Mulism. Klein’s 2010 work The Obama Identity: A Novel (Or Is It?), co-authored with a former Republican congressman, is a compendium of Obama conspiracy theories. He had to self-publish the book.
May
(CLICK BOOK COVER TO BUY)
By Don Lash
The Socialist Worker <—Home Page Link
THE DECISION of a grand jury in Westchester County, New York, to not indict any police officers in the shooting death of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. has sparked anger and outrage from Chamberlain’s family and others seeking justice.
Chamberlain, a 68-year-old former Marine and prison guard, was Tasered and then shot with bean bags and live bullets after police burst into his apartment in White Plains, N.Y., outside New York City, on November 19, 2011.
The police who came to Chamberlain’s apartment in a White Plains housing project at 5 a.m. weren’t responding to reports of a crime in progress, but a possible medical problem, after Chamberlain set off a Life Alert pendant, probably by accident in his sleep. A recording by the medical device in his home captured the horrific crime that was to follow.
Despite the fact that Chamberlain told police he was fine, and the Life Alert company also reported the false alarm, police demanded to enter the apartment. When Chamberlain said through the closed door that he was okay, one officer responded, “We don’t give a fuck.” Another officer can be heard referring to Chamberlain as a “nigger” and making a mocking reference to his Marine service. (READ MORE)
By Terrance Heath
Campaign For America’s Future
(Our Future.org)
Told ya so. I said earlier that Newt Gingrich had pretty much written the script for at least one Democratic television spot, with his double-barreled attack on Mitt Romney’s vulture capitalist career at the helm of Bain Capital. I just didn’t think I’d be saying “I told ya so,” this soon.
Yet, here we are. The attack that launched a number of similar attacks from the rest of the GOP field — not to mention an awful lot of analysis of the nature of private equity firms and questions about whether the contribute any real value to society or the economy — has now launched an Obama campaign attack ad and website: RomneyEconomics.Com.
How well will this play for the Obama campaign? It’s a legitimate question. First off, this ground has been covered (scorched, even) by Gingrich and other Republican candidates. Second, as Howard Kurtz asks, “How relevant an attack on Romney’s Bain background going to be in 2012?” Not so much, says Kurtz. But then he makes a point that undermines his overall take on the ad. (READ MORE)
By Jim Swanson
Progressive News Daily
Photos from Oddee.com <—Home Page Link
It’s a nice, healthy look (or so I hear) to get a really nice tan during the summer.
But there are some who, for whatever reason, don’t spend time in the sun, use tanning beds or use the spray-on tan. It’s the spray-on tan where people get so tanned, it’s down right creepy, ridiculous and, well, you decide what adjective to use.
(YIKES!)
(I'M TOO SEXY FOR MY TAN)
See More Photos from Oddee.com (HERE)
The Chicago Tribune
A Chicago man facing computer hacking charges in a federal investigation targeting the worldwide group Anonymous is entertaining himself behind bars the old fashioned way: by reading books.
Jeremy Hammond (pictured at right) is doing “great,” defense attorney Elizabeth Fink said after Hammond’s not guilty plea Monday in federal court in Manhattan. “We’ve provided him with a ton of books. He’s having a good time reading.”
The reading list for the self-described “communist anarchist” includes “Carry Me Home,” a 2001 book about the civil rights era in Birmingham, his lawyer said. “A Time to Die” – Tom Wicker’s 1971 book about the rebellion at New York’s Attica prison – wasn’t allowed by the jail, she added.
There was no bail request at the brief hearing Monday for Hammond, who pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit computer hacking and other charges. He’s been held in a lower Manhattan lockup since an initial court appearance in Chicago in March. (READ MORE)
by Joan McCarter
Daily Kos
Elizabeth Warren, candidate for Massachusetts Senate, is the hot ticket for financial reporters today, by virtue of the fact that she’s just about the smartest person on financial reform out there since she chaired the congressional oversight panel on TARP from 2008 to 2010, and led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2010 to 2011, after having fought successfully for the agency to be part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Beyond that, she can talk about financial reform both with authority and in a way that makes it completely understandable.
She made news first by calling for Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, to resign his position on the board of the New York Federal Reserve in response to the news that his bank lost more than $2 billion in one set of trades.
That’s not all she’s talking about today, though. In an email to supporters, she makes the case for Congress to implement a modern Glass-Steagall law, to keep banks from being able to speculate with depositors’ money.
A new Glass-Steagall would separate high-risk investment banks from more traditional banking. It would allow Wall Street to take risks, but not by dipping into the life savings and retirement accounts of regular people.
By Adrian Bishop
Earth Times Online
U.S. scientists have developed a new method of verifying urban reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2). Researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah say their computer simulation data from Salt Lake Valley identified differences in CO2 emissions of over 15%.
The system could be used to verify urban CO2 reductions if a global treaty is signed to lower carbon dioxide levels and reduce global warming.
The findings are being published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
The proof-of-concept first step is a ground-based method, but by using satellite monitoring the accuracy rate may be increased. The panel of the National Academy of Sciences recommends five per cent accuracy.
Co-author Jim Ehleringer, a University of Utah professor of biology, says the aim of the research was to collect data on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an urban area to see if emissions patterns could be predicted. (READ MORE)
from You Tube
We got a wee glimpse of Mittens’ temper during the debate. Here’s the mix up between Romney and Ricky Perry:
By The Progressive Cop
(MR. DOODY)
Is homosexuality a choice? Republican Congressman James Lankford of Oklahoma seems to think so. In a sidewalk interview with staff from the website thinkprogress.org, Lankford said that he not only believes homosexuality is a choice but that he also believes employers should be able to fire an employee simply because they are homosexual.
It doesn’t seem to matter that the American Medical Association, the American Association of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association all agree that homosexuality is not a choice. Neither does it seem to matter that common sense prevailing, if it were a choice it would be hard to imagine numbers ranging as high 5 to 10 percent of the world’s population making that choice. Imagine choosing to risk ostracism by your family or choosing a life of constantly being ridiculed by neighbors. Imagine facing a lifetime of systematic discrimination which is reinforced by clowns such as Lankford. In many countries the “choice” means risking imprisonment and even execution. (READ MORE)
by Jim Swanson
Progressive News Daily
The alleged shooter of teenager Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, may be in a lot more trouble than he thinks.
The FBI has said tonight that Zimmerman, currently free on bond, might be charged with a racial hate crime.
The FBI made the announcement shortly after Zimmerman’s lawyers received the list of witnesses and evidence materials Those materials included some possibly damaging never before seen accounts of the shooting from witnesses, new footage and new 911 call recordings.
Florida State Prosecutors made their case that Zimmerman actually profiled and stalked Trayvon Martin before the confrontation that led to the death of the teenager.
Now that the FBI has been investigating, there is the possibility of raising the charges from second degree murder to a federal hate crime.
Television station WFTV’s news department said:
FBI investigators are actively questioning witnesses in the retreat at the Twin Lakes neighborhood, seeking evidence for a possible federal hate crime charge.
Martin was unarmed when he was shot to death, police said, and some accuse Zimmerman of targeting the teenager solely because of the color of his skin.
WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said federal prosecutors would have to prove the hate crime to charge Zimmerman, though.
By Ann Werner
Addicting Info.org <—Home Page Link
The Etch-a-Sketch candidate has done it again and this time it’s about job creation but with a painful twist. Who hasn’t heard the former Governor of Massachusetts talk about the hundred thousand jobs he created during the time he was the head of Bain Capital? It’s been a recurring theme in his campaign and the paramount reason why he says the electorate should trust him, rather than Obama, with the economy. However, under scrutiny, those claims don’t hold up and so the Romney campaign has had to downgrade the claim to thousands of jobs.
Non-partisan FactCheck.org states: “It’s true that the private equity firm Bain Capital, which Romney headed from 1984 to 1999, invested in many companies that went on to add jobs. But there’s no thorough count of the jobs gained and lost in all the companies in which Bain invested. And it’s highly debatable whether Bain, and Romney, deserve credit for all of the jobs created, particularly when there were other investors, executives who launched or ran the companies, and new owners in later years.”
This from the Washington Post Fact Checker: Romney’s campaign provided current employment numbers for some of Bain’s greatest success stories: Staples has 89,000 workers, the Sports Authority 15,000 and Domino’s 7,900. Based on that information, we know the private-equity firm did indeed create jobs during Romney’s tenure by providing seed capital and advice to these start-ups. But that list does not include the leveraged buyouts. By itself, it’s not enough to prove a net-net gain in employment numbers. For that, we need to compare the number of people laid off with the number of people hired, which requires old jobs figures for all the companies Bain purchased under Romney. Neither Bain nor the Romney campaign gave us that information when we asked for it. Bain also declined to answer with a yes or no whether its companies created more jobs than it eliminated during Romney’s tenure. (READ MORE)
By Alexandra Jaffe
The National Journal <—Home Page Link
Speaking at an event sponsored by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY), said that he didn’t think President Obama’s views on marriage “could get any gayer.”
The remarks, which were posted in a video to the website The Iowa Republican, drew laughs from the crowd. “Call me cynical,” he said, “but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer.”
Though Paul’s comment elicited laughs from the crowd, not everyone thinks same-sex marriage is a joke. (READ MORE)
By Jim Christie
California Governor Jerry Brown on Monday unveiled a revised state budget plan that calls for new cuts to healthcare for the poor and elderly and reduced work hours for state employees as part of an effort to close a $15.7 billion budget gap.
Brown had said on Saturday that the projected deficit for the fiscal year beginning in July had increased from the $9.2 billion projected in January due to the slow economic recovery, less revenue and other factors including some cutbacks in social service spending blocked by the courts and federal government.
Since his election in 2010, Brown has been trying to address a chronic budget crisis that stems from the state’s sharp limits on local property taxes and heavy dependence on volatile income and sales taxes.
The California economy is the ninth largest in the world and just smaller than Italy’s economy. (READ MORE)
Fact Check.org
“So full of sh*t, her eyes are brown” – JS
In several urgent fundraising appeals, Rep. Michele Bachmann falsely claims that biased “liberal judges” redrew her congressional district “in retaliation for repeatedly standing up to President Obama.” The truth is that only two of the five judges were Democratic appointees, and Bachmann’s Minnesota district has become even more Republican than it was before.
It’s true that a bipartisan panel of judges redrew district lines and placed the town where Bachmann lives in an abutting district represented by a Democrat. But she has chosen to again run in the 6th District, the one she has represented since 2007. And she doesn’t even have to move to do that.
Bachmann has sent out several appeals that carry the same message:
Bachmann email, May 11: A major development has just occurred in my race for the U.S. House of Representatives and I’m asking for your immediate help…
…You see, in retaliation for repeatedly standing up to President Obama on the national stage, liberal judges have redrawn the lines of my Minnesota Congressional District to try and wipe me off of the political map once and for all.
Their bias was so obvious they even gerrymandered my home — where my wonderful husband Marcus and I live –- entirely out of my District and placed it into one held by a six-term Democrat incumbent! (READ MORE)
By Corbett B. Daly
CBS News
The White House said Monday that JPMorgan Chase’s admission last week that it lost more than $2 billion in one set of trades is reason to continue to push for stronger, not weaker, regulation of the nation’s financial system.
“It’s so important that we resist the efforts of Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists” to water down the 2010 rewrite of the rules of Wall Street, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“It is amazing, given the events we’ve seen the last few days that there are still those who are out there arguing that we should repeal Wall Street reforms, that we should let Wall Street write its own rules again,” Carney said.
The largest U.S. bank by assets said last week that it had lost more than $2 billion in a set of trades that chief executive Jamie Dimon later called “flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed and poorly monitored.” (READ MORE)